Digibox Knackered?

[nomarch]

Hi Guys,

3 days ago my Grundig digibox which I bought from ebay last year to replace a faulty PACE box stopped showing most of my terrestrial channels BBC 1 is fine but 2, ITV, Ch. 4 and Five all blue screen and say that there is a Technical fault with the channel' and then changes to 'No satellite signal is being received'

Also the complete Discovery network has the same problem and other random channels, Sci-Fi is OK but Virgin isn't and Sky News doesn't work either.

I've been through the usual procedures all with the same result.

1 Pulling the power cable out and leaving the box for a few minutes and then plugging back in.

2 Engineers Menu -> New Installation

3 Forced Software Upgrade

4 Reset LNB and 22Khz

Result: No change to any of the other problematic channels but BBC1 whinged that it also had no signal but after about 20 seconds it started working.

I even rang up Sky earlier to see if they could do anything about it but other than trying to run me through the above steps which I told him I had already tried. He said the box was probably knackered and it would need an engineer to come.

My Dilemma is do you think its the box that's having a bad day or could it be the receiver on the dish itself? I can get another box from ebay for about £15 but if the problem is dish side then obviously that won't fix it and I'll have to pay Sky to come out anyway.

Is there anything else I can try or should I just bite the bullet and pay sky £9 a month for the next year?

thanks

 

[davemurgatroyd2]

Grundig satellite division was taken over by Thompson who continued to use the same poor quality power supplies - underspecified electrolytic capacitors. Both makes are renowned for failure of the power supply which gives exactly the symptoms you describe - try a search on these forums for "power supply Thompson". They are otherwise good quality boxes but whether it is worth repairing (Grundigs have not been produced for many years so it is getting very long in the tooth now) or replacing is up to you. Repair kits are available from Satcure as are repaired power supplies with upgraded components - see here Spares for Sky digibox and other receivers

 

[nomarch]

Thanks for the info, that clears things up for me nicely. Looks like im off to ebay

Just my luck this happens on Glasto weekend

 

[nomarch]

My New box (Pace DS430N) arrived today, plugged it in and it worked perfectly. Just wanted to say thanks for the great advice!